Weight Watchers Serving Up Understanding to Those Who Eat Their Feelings

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In a new celebrity-free Weight Watchers ad, a defeated baseball team buries its sorrows in pizza.

By Andrew Adam Newman

Nov. 24, 2014

FOR an industry that aims to help change consumers’ habits, weight-loss brands themselves seem to take the same approach year in and year out: Hire celebrities who have lost weight through the programs to pitch them. Kirstie Alley is a spokeswoman for Jenny Craig, for example, and Marie Osmond for Nutrisystem. But now Weight Watchers, which featured Jessica Simpson in advertising earlier this year, is introducing a campaign that ditches the celebrity approach.

Actors in the ad eat treats in what appears to be a balanced way, like a smiling young woman licking an ice cream cone and a triumphant Little League team eating pizza after a big win. But then another Little League team, looking dejected, eats pizza at the same restaurant, and the song continues, “If you’re sad and you know it, eat a snack.” Images that follow include a male dance contestant eating a candy bar as his female partner weeps beside him, the winning competitors bowing nearby.

The spot shows people eating because they feel bored, stressed and guilty, like a fully clothed woman in an unfilled bathtub eating cheese puffs, an adolescent boy staring blankly at a computer as he gnaws a meat stick and a young woman in a downpour crying as she licks frosting from a cupcake.

“If you’re human and you know it, then your face will surely show it,” Mr. Babino sings near the end of the spot. “If you’re human, eat your feelings, eat a snack.”

On a title card appears the tagline for the campaign, “Help with the hard part,” and finally the Weight Watchers logo, the only mention of the advertiser in the 60-second spot.

The commercial is the first work for Weight Watchers by Wieden & Kennedy in Portland, Ore. Because it aims to be a conversation-starter among viewers, the commercial, which will be introduced broadly on Sunday, is being placed with an emphasis on what marketers call co-viewing, meaning programming apt to draw multiple members of a household. It will appear, for example, during the midseason finale of “The Walking Dead” on AMC on Sunday and the season finale of “The Voice” on NBC on Dec. 15. It also will appear widely in cinemas.

“Cinema is great because you’re sitting there with your huge thing of popcorn,” said Lesya Lysyj, president of Weight Watchers in North America, noting how the commercial will be shown when some consumers have made unfortunate food choices.

Ms. Lysyj lauded Ms. Simpson, but said that Weight Watchers was moving away from the celebrity approach both to distinguish itself from competitors and to better reflect the challenge of weight loss.

“We’ve never actually said that weight loss is easy, but when you use celebrities and show before-and-after photos, what you’re doing is kind of implying that it is easy,” said Ms. Lysyj.

Weight Watchers, which declined to reveal advertising expenditures for the campaign, spent $82.7 million on advertising in the United States in the first six months of 2014, down from $100.3 million during the same period in 2013, according to the Kantar Media unit of WPP.

Waistlines are growing steadily in the United States, with about 69 percent of the adult population overweight or obese, according to the Centers for Disease Control. That trend has helped fitness apps like Fitbit and Lose It, but not Weight Watchers, which posted worldwide revenue of $1.15 billion in the first nine months of 2014, down from $1.36 billion in the same period of 2013, a drop of 15.2 percent.

Michael Tabtabai, a Wieden & Kennedy creative director, said that the new commercial was meant to emphasize the face-to-face support found at Weight Watchers’ meetings — and lacking from smartphone apps.

“As part of its core offering, Weight Watchers has a network to reach out to get support,” Mr. Tabtabai said. “It’s at the core of their philosophy, and that’s something that is unique to Weight Watchers in the category.”

The commercial, said Jason Kreher, another creative director at the agency, aims not to pass judgment on anyone eating in an unhealthy way, but rather to demonstrate that Weight Watchers understands that eating can be emotionally charged.

“The role of the spot is to say that at the end of the day, we get it and we’re here to help,” Mr. Kreher said.

Jay Jacobs, who lost 181 pounds competing on the 11th season of “The Biggest Loser” and who is a managing partner of the Shurn Group, a wellness branding firm, says he dislikes the use of celebrities and before-and-after photos in advertising for weight-loss brands.

“With rosy before-and-after pictures, people know that’s a lie — that somewhere along the line that person either had a lot of challenges to get over that hump, or that there’s another ‘after’ picture coming another two years later” showing the weight had been gained back, Mr. Jacobs said.

He reviewed the new Weight Watchers commercial and said he was impressed.

“Most of us who have had trouble with our weight are secret eaters, have felt alone, have felt shame, have felt like the wheels are just falling off,” Mr. Jacobs said. “What Weight Watchers has done in a smart way without degrading anybody is call out what it’s really like for the millions with weight issues.”

He predicted the commercial would cause a stir in the category.

“This is a solid foundational strategy that speaks the truth,” he said, “and I think they’re going to get a lot of good play.”

A version of this article appears in print on , Section B, Page 4 of the New York edition with the headline: Serving Up Understanding to Those Who Eat Their Feelings. Order Reprints | Today’s Paper | Subscribe